


you're like the sun that gives the moon its glow

by lvllns



Series: feathers and stone [4]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Other, mason is tactile and spends some time touching tattoos and freckles the fic, shockingly no sex here, the explanation is i love sparrow and mason, the mature is mostly for Implied Sexy Times and language, this is mostly disgusting fluff listen i can explain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26944834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lvllns/pseuds/lvllns
Summary: Sparrow is stretched out on their bed, arms raised over their head and legs crossed at the ankles. Their eyes are closed, face a mask of serenity, and there’s a part of Mason that takes that as an ego boost considering what they just finished doing.He watches them silently, gaze flickering from their hands to their toes. Up and down. Over and over. It’s novel to stay like this. To lie here and just look his fill without feeling like he needs to leave. To get out because he doesn’t stick around. That’s all changed recently and it still twists him up inside. Nat keeps giving him looks, and Felix keeps needling him about love and it’s not like that.It’s not.
Relationships: Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), NB Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Series: feathers and stone [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756300
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	you're like the sun that gives the moon its glow

**Author's Note:**

> i've been in a writing slump lately and this just. happened. it's nice so i'll take it.

Sparrow is stretched out on their bed, arms raised over their head and legs crossed at the ankles. Their eyes are closed, face a mask of serenity, and there’s a part of Mason that takes that as an ego boost considering what they just finished doing.

He watches them silently, gaze flickering from their hands to their toes. Up and down. Over and over. It’s novel to stay like this. To lie here and just look his fill without feeling like he needs to leave. To get out because he doesn’t stick around. That’s all changed recently and it still twists him up inside. Nat keeps giving him looks, and Felix keeps needling him about love and it’s not like that.

It’s not.

Sparrow is just...well, it doesn’t matter.

Because right now, they’re naked atop their sheets, still a little flushed, and it’s ridiculous how endearing the light pink dusting their cheeks is. Mason reaches over and swipes his thumb over the bridge of their nose. They scrunch their face up, lips pulling in a small smile, but they keep their eyes shut. Gently, he cups their cheek. Stares intently at their face. Painted with freckles, clusters coloring across their face and down to the rest of their body. Their nose, Grecian as it is, pulls his attention and he runs the pad of his index finger from between their brows to the tip of their nose.

“Is it still attached to my face?” Their smile grows wide enough to flash teeth.

Mason snorts. “Seems to be.”

They hum. Tilt their head a little to lean into his touch as much as they can, chasing after his hand like a flower seeking the sun.

He pulls away. Slips from them like water to recline on his side, propping his head up on his hand, elbow on the mattress. They shift, wiggle really, and burrow a little deeper into the blankets. Reaching out, he touches a tattoo on their right side, over their ribs. Handwriting he doesn’t recognize. Sparrow freezes, their body going tight and tense for a moment before relaxing again.

“Can I,” he frowns as he pulls his hand away. “I don’t recognize the handwriting.”

They swallow hard. Reach up and press their palm over the tattoo with ease, like they’ve done it a million times and maybe they have. “You wouldn’t,” they whisper, voice tight. Sparrow clears their throat and shakes their head. “It’s my father’s handwriting.”

“Oh,” Mason says. He blinks rapidly a few times, shuffles through everything he knows about Sparrow and their father and realizes it’s very little. Aside from that one conversation, they’ve never spoken about him. He isn’t sure what to say, where to take this from here, and he opens his mouth a few times like a dying fish before they continue.

“It was written on the back of a picture of the two of us, mum had to have taken it.” Their eyes are still closed, they smile again though it’s distinctly sad this time. Mason curls his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out. “I was barely a year old but he was holding me up, spinning me around.”

His eyes drop back to the ink, to the words permanently written on their pale skin. _Fly bird, fly_. He doesn’t stop himself this time when the urge to touch overwhelms him again. Mason traces the letters with his middle finger, the faintest whisper of a touch. Light and fleeting. Goosebumps erupt on Sparrow’s body, racing down their side.

Something settles over them then. Heavier than it should be, he thinks, after the sex they just had. So he does what he does best and avoids whatever is hanging in the air around them. His touch drifts to the dermals they have, four bright studs along the wings of their hip bones. He presses his thumb against one and quirks a brow, though they don’t see.

“When did you get these?”

They make a thoughtful sound, something low, in the back of their throat. “I was eighteen, they came before the tattoos.”

“Really?” He scoots closer. Pulls a leg up so his knee touches their thigh. “Don’t take this the wrong way sweetheart, but I never would have expected piercings like this on you.” He pokes the stud on their hip again as his gaze flicks up to their face.

“Mason, the most outrageous thing I had ever done before I turned eighteen was dye my hair blue without asking when I was twelve.”

He really doesn’t mean to laugh but he does. It bubbles out of him before he can stop it. Sparrow cracks an eye open and tries to glare at him but it’s disgustingly...something. Fond, Mason thinks, fond and something else that he can’t place.

“Have I told you lately that you’re the worst, sunshine?”

“Last thing I remember you telling me before this conversation is ‘please don’t stop, right there’ so—”

They swat at him, giggling and rolling around until he’s on his back and they’re straddling his waist. He catches their wrists in one hand. Holds them loose enough they could get away but Sparrow only splays their palms on his chest and leans forward, hair hanging like a curtain around them, hazel eyes glittering with something that Mason thinks looks a lot like happiness.

His heart skips a beat before picking up just a little. Happy. Are they happy because of him? Or for some other reason? His brows furrow, eyes narrowing, but he shakes his head to clear his mind before anything can pull him from whatever this moment is.

“You didn’t even let me tell you the best part of that story,” Sparrow says as they lean back, fingers tapping a rhythm against his chest that he doesn’t recognize.

“My apologies your highness,” he drawls, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. “Please, continue.”

They push down on the middle of his sternum with the ring finger of their left hand. “I panicked and dyed my hair back to strawberry blonde two days later because I felt so bad I did it without asking for permission.”

There is no chance of stopping his laughter this time. It bursts from him, loud and unapologetic. Sparrow slips off his lap, returning to lying on their back, as they cover their face and giggle. They snort like they always do when they laugh hard enough, and that sets Mason off again. It takes a few minutes for them both to settle down. He tips his head to the side to look at them, their body stretched out again, all long lean lines of muscle.

He rolls back onto his side. Extends his arm so he can touch the tattoo on their right thigh. Geometric with a sunflower in the middle, done only in black like the rest of the art on their body. “Why a sunflower?”

“It’s my favorite.”

Simple as that, it seems.

Mason moves a leg, hooks his foot around their calf so they’re touching again, and smooths a hand over their side. Aimlessly, he begins to connect their freckles. Dot to dot. Patterns that mean nothing and patterns that mean something, though he isn’t sure why. Memories locked away behind an iron door. A room he has no access to but that his body remembers all the same. Sweeping lines, curls and bursts of starlight. He paints them all in his mind while the pads of his fingers ghost across Sparrow’s body.

They shiver as his touch smooths over their ribs. He knows there’s a spot, down close to their hip, that will drive them to arch into his touch or his mouth. He avoids it. Skips to the side, curling his fingers around to touch their back before slipping down to rest on their thigh. Splayed on their leg like this, his hand covers quite a bit of their skin. Palm resting along the outside, his fingers draped over lazily, the tips brushing their inner thigh.

A pull, like a hook in his chest, snags and lures him closer. He goes willingly until he’s near enough that his leg rests over theirs, knee pressing into the bed between their thighs, and he’s tipped to rest more on his stomach than his side. He removes the hand from their thigh. Reaches up and cups their side, fingers spreading over their ribs before he splays his palm over the center of their chest.

Over their heart.

He blinks. Looks up and finds Sparrow with their eyes closed, a lazy smile stretched across their face.

A steady beat beneath his hand. Slow. Relaxed. Even. He could set music to their heart. Compose something Sparrow could play on their violin. His fingers curl, blunt nails digging into their skin. Each breath has their chest expanding, and he watches for a moment before he swallows hard.

“I...I should go,” he murmurs, lips close enough to their shoulder to brush against their skin. Sparrow hums but doesn’t speak.

He should go. He should get up, pull his clothes on, and head back to his room down the hall. Staying is new, and sometimes it makes his skin feel too tight still. They let him set the pace, whether he drags himself away or clings to them like he needs their skin against his to breathe properly.

Sparrow exhales through their nose, long and slow. “I need to shower.”

It’s an out if he’s ever seen one.

They’ll head to the bathroom and he can slip away without them watching. He doesn’t know why they prefer it that way, and Mason desperately tries not to think about how much easier it is to walk away when he can’t turn around and see them.

The bed moves, shifts and creaks as they untangle their limbs from his and sit up. Cold air fills the space they leave behind. His hand fists in the sheet, fabric bunching up in his grip as he watches them. Sparrow groans and stretches and their back pops in a few places.

“Did I fuck your back out Songbird?” Mason grins and rolls to the side as they grab for him with an indignant huff. They're grinning though, hands reaching for him as they dive for his hands. He snorts, scrambling away as he asks, “Want me to fuck it back into place?”

Sparrow pauses, kneeling on the bed, one hand still reaching for him as it slowly drops. When their eyes soften, he knows they’ve caught that question for what it truly is.

What he’s _really_ asking for.

A reason to stay.

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, to be honest,” they say with a grin.

Quick as a flash, he’s off the bed. Scooping them up and tossing them over his shoulder while they giggle and squeal. He smacks their ass lightly, a tap more than anything, and turns his head to nip at their thigh. “Settle down or I’ll drop you.”

Sparrow pinches his waist and he growls. “You would never, you like me too much.”

“I like your—”

“Mason!” They laugh, hands hanging down and fingers brushing against his skin as he walks.

“What? Nat’s not here to tell me to stop.”

“ _Please_ don’t talk about Nat as you’re walking me to the shower like this.”

He snorts, arm tightening around them to keep them safe over his shoulder, and as he kicks the bathroom door shut to the sound of Sparrow laughing, he tucks the ember that burns in his chest somewhere safe.


End file.
